Share

• Print
• Email
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Digg
• Delicious
• Fark
• MySpace

Chronicle Director the "Frontrunner" to Helm Fox's Fantastic Four Reboot

Fox's pair of kid-friendly Fantastic Four (FF) adaptations were highly successful in terms of box office numbers, bringing in a combined total of $619 million worldwide, but the movies were shredded by critics and never even came close to winning over die-hard comic book and comic book movie fans (for the laundry list of reasons why, check out this "hater" forum over at SuperHeroHype). Aware that the current franchise had already run its course after only two movies, Fox announced back in August 2009 that it was rebooting FF and that Green Lantern scribe Michael Green had been hired to write the script.

Since that time, however, we've heard nothing but rumors about the FF reboot, from the supposed title of the new movie to the actors who might be playing Mr. Fantastic. Though producer Akiva Goldsman has dropped the project, Fox hasn't given up on the FF reboot just yet — in fact, the studio can't, unless it wants the rights to revert back to Marvel — and is currently looking at directors. According to Variety, the current "frontrunner" for the job is up-and-coming director Josh Trank, whose feature debut, the "found footage" superhero movie Chronicle, opens in less than three weeks.

Trank has apparently taken several meetings with Fox to discuss the FF reboot, but Variety's "insiders" said that the studio is waiting to see how Chronicle performs before making a decision. The fact that Trank is being considered at all says two things: Fox likes what they see of Chronicle, and the studio is shooting for a more realistic approach to FF than the campy, almost cartoonish Tim Story-directed movies.

Here's the synopsis of Chronicle:

New technologies and social communities allow us to record, post and comment on every second of our lives, sharing our every emotion and opinion with the world, no matter how mundane.

For three high school classmates — Dane DeHaan (Amigo), Michael B. Jordan (Red Tails) and Alex Russell (The Wheeler Boys) — who suddenly gain superpowers from a mysterious substance, the Chronicle of their ordinary lives is about to take on extraordinary turn.

Initially they use their powers to play innocent pranks on each other and people around them, but soon they gain confidence and learn to control their powers better to take on more difficult tasks. Their newfound sense of immortality and impunity will force them to evaluate their own morality to ultimately decide where to draw the line about how far they should go.